Mafia don threatening us to drop case: Jindal group

The Jindal Group has claimed it has received two calls from a person claiming to be underworld don Ravi Pujari, who allegedly threatened them to withdraw the extortion bid case against Zee News.

The industrial house has filed a complaint with the police.

A representative of the Jindal Group said that the calls were made at two different times on November 29 to the company’s office in south Delhi’s Bhikaji Cama Place.

“We confirm having received calls from one claiming to be Ravi Pujari from Australia, threatening us to withdraw the case against Zee. The calls were received on the board number,” a Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) spokesperson said.

The caller claimed that he was earlier associated with two underworld dons — Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan — and wanted to talk directly to Congress MP and Jindal Group chairman Naveen Jindal over the ongoing issue.

The matter came to light after Jindal Group’s lawyer Ramesh Gupta informed a Delhi court about the threat calls.

“Initially, we took the calls casually, but when we searched the caller’s identity on the internet, we found the matter serious in nature. A complaint was lodged with the crime branch the same day,” said Gupta.

A senior investigating officer confirmed the receipt of a complaint and said that they were conducting a parallel investigation into it.

“We are looking into the matter. A fresh FIR will be lodged, if required,” said the senior officer.

The Jindal Group had conducted a counter-sting on two senior Zee News editors and alleged that they had demanded R100 crore worth of advertisement contract in return for not running stories “exposing” the alleged involvement of JSPL in the coal blocks allocation scam.

The two Zee News editors, Sudhir Chaudhary and Samir Ahluwalia, are currently in police custody.

The Zee News has rejected the allegations and described the arrest of its journalists as an attempt to gag the media.

It also claimed that the police was acting under “political pressure” in the case.